1. Technical Field
This invention relates in general to telecommunications and in particular to a method for enhancing the establishment of communications between a communication station and a telecommunications network. Still more particularly, this invention relates to a method of effectively monitoring the establishment of call setup messages between a communication station and a telecommunications network.
2. Background Art
It is well known in the prior art to utilize computer program controlled telephone switching systems to interconnect individual telephone stations, digital terminals, personal computers and large main-frame computers. Such intercommunications may be utilized to provide voice and/or data communications. In a typical application, the telephone switching system is utilized to establish communication connections between two communication stations, both of which may include an associated computer facility connected to a communications pair. Thereafter, the operator generally utilizes a modem which converts digital signals output by a computer to analog signals suitable for transmission by the telephone system. Alternately, certain systems permit direct communication by digital signals over special communication pairs.
More recently, certain systems have been proposed which incorporate computer facilities which are directly connected to a communications pair. In such systems, the computer facility is utilized to emulate the functions of a telephone communication system. In this manner, the telephone communication station is no longer required for computer data call origination purposes.
In either of the two aforementioned systems, it is common during call setup for a multitude of command and information messages to be transmitted back and forth between a computer facility and a second computer facility, or a Private Branch Exchange (PBX). Such messages may be directed toward acknowledgement of selected parity, data rate, and other call parameters, as well as indications of the progress of the interconnection. Such messages may prove useful during initial setup of a communication system, or to troubleshoot the system to determine why a communications attempt has failed; however, the shear magnitude of message numbers may obscure the progress of the communications link and make it difficult for the casual operator to determine the progress of setup for an ordinary data call. Thus, it should be apparent that a need exists for a method which will provide the system operator with selected call progress information without overwhelming the operator with large amounts of information and/or data.